Wednesday, August 17, 2011

The Servant/Arm of the LORD in Isaiah 53:1


           In order to capture the full significance of Isaiah 53:1, one must remember the message of Isaiah 49-52: “God has promised to deliver his people from their alienation from him so that they can indeed become his servants to the world. Now [in Isaiah 52:13-3:12] he tells the means by which he proposes to effect that deliverance.”[1]

           In Isaiah 52:13 God claims the Servant as His own, introducing a section that describes aspects of both the Servant’s ministry as well as the response of those who witness His work. The pronouns “He,” “His,” and “Him” appear regularly through 52:13-15,[2] directing the reader back to their antecedent, the Servant. The prophet declares in verse 15 that a mystery will be revealed to the nations. This theme appeared earlier in Isaiah in passages such as 49:2 and 50:6, in which “images of the servant are linked with the themes of hiddenness and seeing.”[3] The verse explains that the Arm of the LORD is the revelation to be disclosed. No masculine pronouns appear in 53:1 because the Arm of the LORD is substituted for Him,[4] but thereafter the pronouns occur with great frequency once more (vv. 2-12). This indicates afresh that the Arm of the LORD is God’s Servant, and His mission is the soteric redemption of Jew and Gentile alike.

            The Isaiah 53:1 attestation of the Arm of the LORD, because of its position in the fourth Servant Song of Isaiah, is one of the most important texts of the Arm motif. The verse is rhetorical in nature, marking the twenty-sixth passage in which Isaiah made use of rhetorical questions.[5] Interestingly enough, the questions begin directly after the usage of Arm of the LORD in Isaiah 40:11 and terminate with the employment of Arm of the LORD in 53:1, as if the unveiling of the Servant provides the answer to all inquiries in Isaiah 40-53.

 “The message of Isaiah 52:7-12 is put into effect” in Isaiah 53:1.[6] David J. A. Clines rightly noted that verse 1b, like verse 1a, contains “a rhetorical question expecting a negative answer.”[7] In other words, not only must the Arm of the LORD be revealed, He also would be disclosed in an unexpected way that would startle the observers.
       
     The surprise of the audience stems from two factors. The Israelites, first, were cognizant that the Arm of the LORD was the instrument by which God expressed His militaristic might. The working of God’s Arm against the Egyptians at the Red Sea (Ex. 15:16; Deut. 4:34; 5:15; etc.) had left a lasting impression on the people of God. Second, in chapters previous to Isaiah 51:4-8 the prophet employs the Arm as the Conqueror of the enemies of Israel.[8] To Israel’s astonishment, therefore, the Arm of the LORD “would [not] rend the heathen,”[9] but would seek to redeem them (cf. Isa. 52:10-53:15).


[1] Oswalt, The Book of Isaiah: Chapters 40-66, 382.
[2] According to the pericope: 1) “He will be high and lifted up”; 2) “His appearancewas marred more than any man”; 3) “His form [was marred] more than the sons of man”; 4) “He will sprinkle many nations”; and 5) “Kings will shut their mouths on account of Him.” The prophet Isaiah employed multiple masculine pronouns throughout this section so that his audience immediately would realize that he was continuing his discussion regarding the Servant. This deliberate device insured that there would be no question that Isaiah 53 refers to the kingly, yet suffering Messiah whom the LORD promised to send in order to provide atonement for the people’s sin.
[3] Robert P. Carroll, “Blindsight and the Vision Thing,” in Writing and Reading the Scroll of Isaiah: Studies of an Interpretive Tradition, vol. 1, ed. Craig C. Broyles, et al., Supplements to Vetus Testamentum, vol. 70, no. 1, ed. J. A. Emerton, et al. (Leiden: Brill, 1997), 88.
[4] זְרוֹעַ is a feminine noun, but this does not mean that the arm is feminine. In languages such as Hebrew, the gender of the noun is not always a case of masculinity or femininity: “It is important to understand that feminine nouns (grammatical gender) do notrefer only to feminine things (natural gender) or masculine nouns only to masculine things. . . . What the gender of a Hebrew noun indicates is the pattern of inflection it will usually follow.” Gary D. Pratico and Miles V. van Pelt, Basics of Biblical Hebrew Grammar (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2001), 29. זְרוֹע is a good example of this pattern, for although it is feminine in Hebrew, its Greek equivalent (bracivwn) is masculine. The Bible recognizes both זְרוֹע and bracivwn (cf. John 12:38) as messianic, demonstrating that זְרוֹע possesses a grammatical rather than a natural gender.
[5] Kenneth J. Kuntz, “Rhetorical Questions in Deutero-Isaiah,” in Writing and Reading the Scroll of Isaiah: Studies of an Interpretive Tradition, vol. 1, ed. Craig C. Broyles, et al., Supplements to Vetus Testamentum, vol. 70, no. 1, ed. J. A. Emerton, et al. ( Leiden: Brill, 1997), 126. Kuntz provided a beneficial list of all passage between Isa. 40:12 and 53:1 which employ interrogative texts: Isa. 40:12-14,18,21,25,28; 41:2,4,26; 42:19,24; 43:13; 44:7-8; 45:9,11,21; 46:5; 48:14; 49:15,24; 50:1-2,9; and 53:1.
[6] N. T. Wright, “The Servant and Jesus: The Relevance of the Colloquy for the Current Quest for Jesus,” in Jesus and the Suffering Servant, ed. William H. Bellinger Jr., and William R. Farmer (Harrisburg, PA: Trinity, 1998), 293. “The arm of [the LORD] . . . is revealed according to Isa. 53:1, in and through the work of [His] Servant.”
[7] David J. A. Clines, I, He, We, and They: A Literary Approach to Isaiah 53, Journal for the Study of the Old Testament Supplement Series, vol. 1, ed. David J. A. Clines, et al. (Sheffield: University of Sheffield, 1976), 15.
[8] In Isa. 30:30 the LORD strikes at Assyria with His Arm; the target at which God directs His Arm in Isa. 48:14 is the Chaldeans.
[9] George A. F. Knight, Servant Theology: A Commentary on the Book of Isaiah 40-55, in the International Theological Commentary, ed. George A. F. Knight and Fredrick Carlson Holmgren (Edinburgh: Handsel, 1984), 169.

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